“The market looks the other way when it comes to neighborhoods like this too often.”
Governor Patrick was in the North End last week, and he made it clear that the deep disparities exemplified by the North End are unacceptable. And at the same time, he spoke about transcending neighborhood boundaries, and his campaign’s commitment to engaging infrequent voters in minority communities (contrary to conventional campaign strategy). Video below. We invite any candidate to offer their perspectives on civic engagement and the issues that have been identified by our stakeholders as priorities (see left).
Eight new charter schools have been proposed for Western Mass: six for Springfield, one for Holyoke (Paulo Freire), and one that apparently has not decided between the two cities (Excellence). The proposals themselves are public information, but they’re not available on the DOE web site. That’s why we’re posting them here (PDFs):
Cheryl Coakley-Rivera, left, and Barbara Rivera, right. Source: The Republican, 1995.
Barbara Rivera Regional Community Action Charter School (prospectus). Affiliated with New North Citizens Council, Barbara Rivera background from Masslive. “Two of the most demoralizing effects of poverty are the absence of the ability to self-advocate or determine and the likelihood of encompassing generations in a vicious cycle.”
Harvest Academy of Learning (prospectus). Emphasis on service learning, no emphasis on food or agriculture.
Unique School & Academy (prospectus). Emphasis on academics, athletics, and vocational skills. Affilitaed: State Rep. Ben Swan, MCDI executive director, Boys and Girls Club executive director, former Boston Celtic.
Springfield Prepatory Charter School (prospectus). Emphasis on college preparation, affiliation with Springfield Technical Community College, plans to contract with SABIS to operate school.
Collegiate Charter School (prospectus). Emphasis on college preparation, leadership, and citizenship. Affiliation with American International College. Board includes Northampton superintendent, retired Holyoke superintendent, Springfield Urban League president
Veritas Prepatory Charter School (prospectus). Emphasis on high expectations for all students. “Supporters” include: The Davis Foundation, The Springfield Republican, The Springfield YMCA, The Springfield Urban League.“Paycheck token economy system” will be used to “reward and grow student behaviors that we want to see.”
Paulo Freire Social Justice Charter School (prospectus). Proposed director is the founder and director of the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts charter school. “Paulo Freire will have programs throughout the school year, an extended day, virtuallearning programs, adult literacy classes, a summer academy and community building activities. The school will model social justice values and norms, and will build a collective awareness to foster equality and respect for all individuals.” See video below.
Excellence Charter School (prospectus). Special emphasis on math, computers, and Tae Kwon Do (logo, right).
When a good proposal is rejected, do you ever wonder if merit had anything to do with it? According to Saturday’s NY Times, many of the winning proposals submitted to the $50 million Social Innovation Fund (not to be confused with the $650 million Investing in Innovation fund we covered on 8/6) received low scores from the 48 independent reviewers. There were also conflicts of interest.
I have a personal interest in this issue. A couple weeks ago I completed my work as the chair of a review committee for a US Dept. of Health and Human Services grant worth about $1 million. We signed this and other forms related to conflict of interest and confidentiality. The oversight was good, we really stuck to the objective criteria from the RFP, and we had to defend our scores with specific examples. Now I’m eager to see how funding decisions match up with our evaluations….
Lest you think the problem is contained to Washington, let me share an experience with a private foundation in this area. An hour after submitting a proposal, we received this email:
“Thank you for submitting a Grant Application on the World Wide Website of [funder name omitted]. A thorough review of the application was made, and we regret to inform you that the application was rejected….”
Incredulous, I responded asking if this was a mistake. The funder’s response:
For some of you, Wednesday’s post about the Harlem Children’s Zone was sort of an education reform buzz kill. If you’re wondering, “What do we do now?,” here’s this: The US Dept. of Education just named the finalists for its $650 million Investing in Innovation (i3) fund–which dwarfs even the $210 million best case scenario for the Promise Neighborhood fund.
The finalists include the fairly well-regarded KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) charter school company, and the City of New York (public obviously, but also known for its market-based approaches to education). That’s already interesting because for those who consider charter schools to be a threat to public education, consider that there are several KIPP schools in NYC, and both proposals may be be funded.
KIPP wants $50 million for a national principal training program that they claim leads to “radically improved student achievement and attainment outcomes.”
NYC wants $5 million for a very fancy sounding computer program that collects data on all students and uses a “state-of-the-art learning algorithm” (like Google!) to create individually customized and adaptive curricula called “playlists” (like Apple!).
Brookings released a report on July 20th showing that the Harlem Children’s Zone’s (HCZ) charter school, called The Promise Academy, performs no better than other NYC charter schools, and suggesting that the significant extra expense of wrap around social support services may not be worth it. (You can follow the back-and-forth that ensued between HCZ’s iconic head, Geoffrey Canada, and the report authors via this excellent summary from City Limits.) At the same time, Congress is considering cutting the Obama’s Administration’s Promise Neighborhood initiative (which is based on the HCZ model) from $210 million to $20 million. HCZ and its partner, PolicyLink, launched a campaign to save the funding.
About a year ago, an ad hoc group formed in Springfield and Holyoke to figure out how to apply the HCZ model in this region. Two delegations were sent to the HCZ conference, but in the end the group decided it was not prepared to submit a competitive proposal for Promise Neighborhood funding. You can see here that there were 339 applicants, including Boston, Lawrence, Worcester, Somerville, Fall River, Hartford, New Haven, and Bridgeport. Part of the reluctance to submit a proposal was that Geoff Canada has over $70 million to spend every year on a section of Harlem that is the size of a single neighborhood in Springfield. No one in Springfield has that kind of money, and a $210 million fund for the entire country is no substitute for HCZ’s incredible hedge fund/Wall Street funding base.
We have made these points about funding and inconclusive evidence for HCZ’s basic claims in previous posts. But questions about the value of HCZ’s holistic approach don’t sit well with us. We know for ourselves, and we hear from stakeholders in and outside the schools, that poverty and neighborhood instability are the best predictors of even narrowly defined academic performance (e.g., MCAS scores). To improve school performance, we need jobs, access to health care and healthy food, democratic participation, and a built environment that is conducive to healthy, happy families.
As a result of the state’s recent level 4 chronically underperforming school determinations (10 out of 35 are in Springfield), many different groups have a renewed interest in bold approaches. And the Springfield school department is legally obligated to make big changes. At The Springfield Institute, our job is to help a broad range of stakeholders organize, track leading edge research and policy analysis, and deploy bold and highly accountable approaches to help ensure that these efforts and financial resources yield results.
We are grateful to Khali Maddox-Abdegeo (video above) and Eli Colgram (both from Universal Community Voices Eliminating Disparities) for guiding us through the Mason Square and McKnight neighborhoods last week. Highlights from our third Wednesday Ride include: A warm welcome at Arise for Social Justice, A hidden mural at Nation of Islam Mosque #13 (right), a visit to State Representative Ben Swan’s office (where we picked up Hal Swan), some oral history of Springfield from a McKnight resident and history buff, and growing numbers of riders! Enjoy this streetscape video (above), with music by Springfield native and UMass grad, Taj Mahal (Farther On Down the Road).
Click to check out Ride #1 and Ride #2, and you can also use our new category (Wednesday Rides) to see a running list of all our posts. Join us this week as we revisit the bike path from its Northern tip (and see if the drainage project is complete). We’ll gather at the YMCA on Chestnut Street at noon, and depart shortly thereafter.
Seven of us headed out from the Y at noon yesterday to discover the North End. Gorgeous weather, visually rich. We used the Gerena community corridor to pass under I-91, we happened upon a bountiful community garden, and followed the giant cement wall that separates the Connecticut River and “Riverview Apartments and Senior Center.”
We were fortunate to be joined by a group of young people from all over New England who are spending the summer riding bikes and raising awareness about climate change (Students for a Just and Stable Future). They share their perspectives on Springfield in the 2 min. video below, and they are hosting a discussion about climate change at the Forest Park Branch Library TONIGHT (Thursday) at 6PM (flyer here).
Join us every Wednesday at noon at the YMCA on Chestnut St. (map) for a casual bike ride to a different neighborhood each week. Let us know if you’d like to guide a tour of your neighborhood. We’re headed to Mason Square next week. Try Holyoke, too!
the springfield institute 